Personal Health Information (PHI) records and electronic PHIs (ePHIs) comprise our most confidential data, including demographic information, medical history, test and laboratory results and insurance information. Health care professionals utilize the PHI to identify the patient and determine appropriate care and treatment; insurers input financial data, and patients can access this information by request. Due to this highly sensitive combination of medical and financial data, these records have become a favorite target for hackers, as shown by the recent Premera and Anthem breaches.

As hackers become more sophisticated in their attacks, organizations must become increasingly vigilant in implementing HIPAA compliant standards to secure their data. Healthcare organizations currently use both on premise and cloud deployments to house their information. In fact, a recent survey of healthcare provider organizations indicates that 83% of IT executives report that they are currently using cloud services. The areas with the most uptake include lab systems and email services; electronic health record and information exchanges (CHIs, EMRs, Telehealth, etc.), and Shadow IT – which is enlisting cloud-based services, but not via their IT departments.

While the advantages in moving to the cloud include improved access, powerful processing capabilities, higher availability and significant savings with on-demand hosting, healthcare organizations are still wary that the cloud may deliver a less secure option. They are reluctant to transfer mission-critical and sensitive information to a seemingly anonymous IT admin in an unidentified location. Other organizations may be concerned that their IT teams may not have the requisite skills and processes to manage the migration and maintenance of the cloud deployment.

In the Public Cloud environment, responsibility for IT security is shared between the health care organization and the Cloud Service Provider (CSP), with a clearly defined demarcation. The CSP is in charge of securing access to the physical servers and the virtualization layer, while the health care organization is responsible for securing the hosted Operating Systems, the applications and the data itself. CSPs differ in the ‘native’ security features they offer, but those always fall short of best-practice security requirements. Therefore, organizations using public clouds are required to supplement the CSP offering to ensure a HIPAA compliant cloud deployment.

As part of a cloud migration process, ePHIs may be ‘exported’ to the cloud, to share with other healthcare organizations, clinicians and insurers, or for cloud-based storage and processing. In such cases encryption of the data in transit and at rest is critical. Firewall policies to control data transfer and access are also required. Since many healthcare organizations have only migrated a portion of their resources to the cloud, the encryption and firewall policies must encompass the hybrid, private and enterprise cloud environments.

When ePHI or other clinical or sensitive data is stored in the cloud, the issue of remote access must also be addressed. Health care professionals and IT staff as well as others need to access cloud resources from remote offices and via mobile devices. Although remote access provides flexibility it is also a significant security caveat. Almost half of the healthcare security incidents last year were the result of loss or theft of devices such as laptops, phones or portable drives. Internal threats are especially worrisome, as 15% of the security incidents in healthcare in 2014 have been attributed to unapproved or malicious use of organizational resources.

The answer to these threats are strong integration with identity controls as well as access management. To protect their resources, organizations must implement a strong two factor or multi-factor authentication systems. Identity-based access management policies assure that employees are not able to access unauthorized data, and multi-factor authentication ensures that those who steal or find lost devices will not be able to reach internal resources.

Another important step in securing healthcare information involves implementing monitoring and logging capabilities. This is emphasized in a cloud environment where the infrastructure is owned by a third party and is shared among several organizations (i.e. multi-tenant). Although logs are important, unless they are regularly monitored in an accurate manner, important or suspicious events will not be noted. Therefore, visibility and automated alerts are critical in early detection of security incidents.

The cloud is becoming the default choice for healthcare CIOs. The fastest path to a secure, compliant healthcare deployment in the cloud requires careful planning and implementation. Key to a viable security solution are encryption, access management and firewall policies, combined with event monitoring capabilities and alerts. Solutions that provide this set of security elements for the public and hybrid cloud are now becoming available in the marketplace, evidence that cloud technologies for healthcare are coming of age.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.